unleash your creativity

Felt Wreath

Level: Intermediate

Time: 1-4 Hours

Topic: Housewares

Hello there. My name is Liz from

Piggies Pleasures. I am so pleased to be visiting Liberate Creativity today for this little guest post tutorial! I have been blogging for several years now and crafting for even longer. Blogging and crafting allow me time to escape from reality for just a bit and focus on the fun things in life that I love so much! One of my passions is that of the fiber arts. I have been spinning yarn for several years now and I find fibers to be so fascinating. I am spinning yarn happily and ferociously to work on the re-opening of my Etsy store which really is a long time coming. So, in honor of all things fibery, (yep, I don’t think that is a word) I will be demonstrating how to make a yarn wreath.

To start out you will need a few supplies:

Wreath-I prefer raffia wreaths over the styrofoam wreaths but either will work just fine. However, the raffia wreaths are bigger and cheaper so that is always a bonus! The raffia wreaths come wrapped in plastic, leave the plastic on.

Yarn-I am using handspun yarn that I spun (the yellow) and some handspun yarn that I picked up in New Mexico (green). Feel free to go crazy with it and use any color of yarn that suits your fancy! I love the texture of handspun yarn and I think it adds a lot of charm to the wreath.

Felt-100% wool felt is fantastic and you can find at most fabric stores. Or if you prefer, the poly/wool blend works well too. Try to stay away from crafters felt; it will fall apart on you pretty easily once you start working with it and does not hold up all that well.

Sewing Pins-I use these to attach some of the felt flowers we will be making. My preference is to use the yellow pins but any color to your liking will do.

Scissors and pinking shears (the shears are optional).

Hot glue gun.

Embellishments-Anything you would like to add to your wreath such as twigs or birdies.

Needle felting kit/wool roving-this is easily omitted so if you don’t have a kit and roving so it is OK!

Fabric pencil-for tracing flower templates.

Template-Card stock, an old file folder, or any form of sturdy paper to make a few templates for the felt flowers.

Now, lets get started! To make things easier on yourself, you may want to go ahead and ball up your yarn. This will prevent it from getting tangled as you wrap the wreath.

First place a bit of hot glue on the wreath and then attach the end of the yarn. I placed the hot glue on the price sticker to prevent the plastic from melting.

Start wrapping the yarn around to cover the wreath. Try to get the yarn close together when wrapping so the wreath does not show through. You may need to wrap one spot several times as you go to make sure it is all covered up! Also pull the yarn tight as you wrap it.

To switch out your yarn, just cut it, tie it to the other color of yarn, and keep wrapping. Make sure your knot is on the backside of the wreath (the side that will face the wall or door after you hang it).

Keep wrapping until you have covered your wreath.

~Just a little tip, it is perfectly fine to not use handspun yarn, however, be sure to buy a thicker store bought yarn. The thinner the yarn the longer it will take to wrap. It once took me 5 hours to wrap a wreath because the yarn was so thin! So, if all you have is time then go for the thin yarn but if you have to cook dinner, clean the house, run errands, and do laundry like I do you may want to stick with thick yarn.

Once you are done wrapping, attach the end of yarn to the wreath with a bit of hot glue. To cover the glue you can lift some of the already wrapped yarn up a bit and pull it over the glue.

You are well on your way to the cutest wreath ever!

Now it is time to make the felt flowers. They are a little time consuming but are terribly cute and fun to make! This has got to be my favorite part of this project. I could make felt flowers for days. You can even make a few extra felt flowers to make pins, clips, headbands; or even embellish a shirt, sweater, or purse.

First, use the card stock, an old file folder, or any form of sturdy paper to make a few felt flower templates.

The templates are really easy:

You will need a small circle, just trace the lid of a small jar such as a baby food jar or turn a small tea cup over, trace, and cut.

You will need a medium circle. A large mason jar lid would work well. Trace and cut.

Draw a 4-leaf clover petal, slightly larger than the size of a quarter, and then cut.

No template is needed for flower leaves, we will just free hand that.

Felt Flower #1

Cut out about 16 of the clover petals from the felt, or as many as you end up needing. Feel free to alternate felt colors or use all the same color. It is up to you!

Cut a circle of felt with the small circle template. This will be the base that we glue the petals on.

Place a bit of hot glue in the middle of one of the clover petals and then glue to the edge of the circle. Repeat this until you meet the first petal that you glued down with the last petal. But, leave 2 petals to the side because you will need this for the center of the flower

4. Take the remaining 2 petals and glue them both down in the center of the felt flower.

5. Cut 2 leaves using pinking shears (shears are optional) and glue on the back of the flower.

Felt Flower #2

Using the small circle template cut 5 circles. I like to cut using pinking shears for a little added texture but this is not necessary.

Use one circle as the base of your flower. Take a second circle and fold it in half, place a touch of hot glue in the middle and then attach to your base circle:

Take the third circle and do the same

Take the fourth circle and lay it vertically over the 2 circles you have already glued down. But, take the right end of the top circle (circle #1) you folded in half and tuck the top end of the fourth circle under it, just like if you were folding the top of a box closed.

Take the last circle and do the same on the other side. You may need to tuck a little glue underneath the last circle to make sure everything is secure.

Then, fluff the little felt flower up!

Glue a felt ball in the center. Stay tuned on how to make a felt ball. That follows below. If you don’t have wool roving and a needle felting kit then just glue a button or something of the like in the center.

Cut one leaf with pinking shears and hot glue to the back of the flower.

Felt Flower #3

Trace the medicum circle template on the felt color of your choice. You will need several of these so go ahead and start cutting a bunch!

Cut the circle into a spiral.

Roll the spiral up to make a rosette.

Glue the end of the rosette to the base of the flower to secure.

Make as many as you would like to decorate your wreath with.

Felt Balls:

Roll a small bit of wool roving into a ball.

Using your needle felting tool, needle felt the ball until the fibers start to stay together.

Once you have a nice ball, wet your hands lightly and roll the ball in between them to smooth out the fibers and fuse them together.

Repeat this until you have about 10-20 balls or as many or little as you want.

This is not an imperative part of the project so if you don’t have the supplies, don’t fret it can be easily omitted and your wreath will still look fabulous!

Now that you have your wreath wrapped with yarn and as many felt flowers as you want prepped and ready to go, it is time to adorn your wreath! For me, this is the most fun (even though I said the felt flowers were the most fun…but really the whole project is fun!) because you see the wreath starting to come together!

If you have extra embellishments to add, start arranging them on the wreath along with the felt flowers. Get a good feel for how you want your wreath to be decorated before you whip out the hot glue and make things permanent.

Once you have everything placed it is time to start gluing and pinning.

The rosettes, I like to use sewing pins to attach them. The head of the pin makes for a nice little bud in the center of the rosette. Believe it or not, the pin secures great in the raffia. The rosettes will be very sturdy and won’t fall off.

For my extra embellishments I added twig berries and a little humming bird to my wreath.

Woo-hoo, you are all done! Whew. Thanks for taking the time to read this tutorial and crafting along with me. I hope your homes will be full of yarn wreaths from now on because the possibilities are endless! Mother’s Day is just right around the corner…maybe there is a yarn wreath in a special mother’s future?

Cheers!

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Published by beckbydesign

Creative lady who works full time and tries to juggle it all, but doesn't always succeed (Who does?!). I love to show off new ideas to help inspire and liberate others creativity!
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8 comments

Laurie – exactly! Think of all the different color schemes you could do! One for each holiday! Or you could even do a dual purpose one that has different colored flowers on different sides – one side for Christmas and the other side for Valentines Day! Ooh, the possibilities!

OMG..well my sister is visiting me for a few weeks and the comment above (from wild violets) was actually me commenting thinking I was signed in to my own blog but apparently, while I was away at work, she signed into her blog. So, I posted that comment under her account by accident so again….Thanks everyone for your kind comments! Yarn wreaths are awesome! I am glad you liked it. :-)That was me…for real this time. Have a great week!